The Tai-Ex opened up 25-points this morning from yesterday's close, at 21,089

on turnover of 2.8-billion N-T.

The market closed down on Tuesday - as early gains were rubbed-out on the

back of lingering (持續的) investor concerns about possible further

volatility on Wall Street despite a rebound overnight.

Although most large cap electronics stocks came under pressure during the

trading day, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing remained resilient to keep

the tech sector and the broader market from falling further.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is defending a decision to raise its budget

for high-level overseas trips by over 60-per cent.

According to ministry spokesman Jeff Liu, the significant increase in the

budget allocated for next year is due to global inflation and rising

commodity prices.

The 2025 budget proposal lists 424-million N-T for overseas travel - that's

an increase of 160-million N-T compared with the budget allocated (分配) for

overseas travel for this year.

The statement comes after opposition lawmakers questioned the budget increase

and called on the foreign ministry to provide more details about how the

money will be spent.

The Centers for Disease Control is warning about the risks of diarrhea ahead

of next week's Mid-Autumn Festival - noting that a significant number of

clusters in Taiwan had been caused by a previously less common strain of

norovirus.

According to the C-D-C, just over 130,000 people with diarrhea visited

emergency and outpatient departments from September 1 through 7.

Although that was a 1.5-per cent decline from the previous week, health

officials are stressing (強調) that it was the highest number for the same

period since 2019.

The C-D-C says 101 diarrhea clusters has also been reported over the past

four weeks, marking a five-year high for the same period.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have taken the debate stage in Philadelphia,

where they’ll fight to sway 2024 election voters on the biggest stage in

U.S. politics.

The event offers Americans their most detailed look at a campaign that’s

dramatically (戲劇性地) changed since the last debate in June.

It’s the only debate that’s been firmly scheduled and could be the only

time voters see Harris and Trump go head-to-head before the November general

election

The debate has no audience, no written notes, and no live mics when

candidates aren’t speaking, according to rules the host network ABC News

shared.

So far Trump has spoken about abortion rights, saying the issue should be

left up to the states, while Harris spoke about her plans to create an

"opportunity economy", and criticized Trump's economic plan as "all about tax

breaks for the richest people".

SpaceX has launched a capsule carrying four private citizens into orbit on a

five day mission set to make history by including the first spacewalk

conducted by a non government crew.

The journey will also take the four private astronauts to the highest orbital

altitude (高度) that humans have reached since the Apollo moon mission in

1972.

Kate Fisher reports

That was the I.C.R.T. news,

Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded

every day in the afternoon.

Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____.

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